Unofficial news and tips about Google

September 18, 2008

Popular Names for iGoogle Tabs

iGoogle has a very cool feature that populates tabs with gadgets and feeds just by entering a title. When you create a tab, there's an option called "I'm feeling lucky. Automatically add stuff based on the tab name".

To make things even easier, iGoogle started to suggest popular names sorted by the number of users. There are 227,300 users that have tab named "Lifestyle", 3,725,200 users that named a tab "Music" and 21,070,090 users that couldn't find a better name than "Home".

I hate the new home tab as well. Now some of the things in my page don't fit! I wish the home tab could be deleted. It didn't bother me when it was at the top of the screen, but taking up screen real estate is stupid.

I agree! I left Comcast when they filled the page with advertising, then I left MS when they did the same thing. I thought iGoogle was way cool until they added this annoying screen filler! I guess the only thing for it is to develop my own page and pay for hosting.

I agree with all above, I hate the new tab location...HATE IT!!!! Google listen to your users, change it back or you will lose us. At least give us the option to change tabs to on top. Are you listening???

Tabs on the left are PATHETIC!!!Get a life, Google. Just because YOU decide to waste YOUR page space, don't make US suffer also.Give us the option to put it back.You gave us Tabs, Toolbar (which I DON'T use because it takes up SPACE!!), Bookmarks, and other gadgets we can add - or NOT. Don't force me to have crap I don't want and to waste space on my home page, or I WILL move to a "quieter" neighborhood for my homepage.I started with "Excite" till it filled up my Homepage, then Yahoo - same thing, and I moved to Google, it let me do it my way. Don't screwup now, give us back the choice of where to put our tabs or I will tell YOU where you can put your tabs!!!

Ya know, I used to use Yahoo until they changed some things without options to delete or return to the old BETTER way to do what I wanted to do. SO I left them for iGoogle... Looks like it's about to happen again... perhaps Baidu? Back to Yahoo? Man, lousy timing to loose ad shares to the competition. PUT THE TABS BACK ON TOP!!!!

Why are the tabs on the side for some users, but not for all? Seriously, my neighbor uses iGoogle and hers didn't change. If she had that option (although she has no idea why hers stayed the same), why can't the rest of us.You're Google, you're supposed to be innovative and receptive the the needs of the people who use and rely on Google.

It's wrong what Google did with adding the tabs on the left - the tabs at the top was a better solution - it should simply be user configurable - continue allowing the user the choice of left or top tabs. at least allow the option to hide them....

Yeahhhh!!! It worked. I change my homepage at home to Yahoo to get away from this and was just about to change my work homepage too when I saw Edam's post of the fix. IT WORKED!!!! So Google gets a moment more. They mess this up and my work homepage bails too!

Eric Schmidt, Sergey Brin, Larry Page, John Doerr, Ram Shriram, John Hennessy, Arthur Levinson, Paul Otellini, Shirley M. Tilghman, Ann Mather...you people might want to wake up and listen to your users. Do you remember the day when you were just a wanna-be search engine? You grew up and became one of the most respected sites out here. Now you joined the crowd and have become a complete sell out company. EVERYONE SHOULD LEAVE ASAP, then watch what happens. No one to see your ads... no ads to pay your bills. TAKE THIS BOARD OF DIRECTORS AND FIRE THEM ALL. Thanks for not listening. F@#K YOU!!! You have had enough time to read these and thousands of other request to fix this stupid mistake. Can you own up to making a mistake or are you (microsoft) perfect?

Edam's suggestion worked, but why should we be wasting time looking for a 'solution' to a problem created entirely by Google? I confess I don't use igoogle much because it doesn't work very well with Opera and also because I don't like home pages in general, and Google's lack of concern for its users is very likely (definitely, actually) going to lead me to use it even less.

I have used igoogle for years, always loved it. However the side tabs are vey incontinent, and my gmail gadget changed to I have one extra click to get into my Gmail account. I dont like having to click launch full gmail, I want it to do that on the first click like before!

I think it's great about the http://www.google.com/ig?gl=all part... however, I'm sure that's just something they forgot to remove, and will remove whenever you give them a chance... I hate, HATE tabs on the left. It messes up everything. And freezes most gadgets whenever I want to do something with them. Just a complete waste of time, and the fact that it was imposed on users, without the option to go back to what originally made us love iGoogle... Come on, you can't be that stupid. People love choices. Taking options away like if you were power-hungry Microsoft isn't going to get you any new users...

Whoever came up with this tabs on the left didn't have his head screwed on right. Tabs on the top can be accommodated by scrolling as the page length is not fixed... Tabs on the side distort everything all of us took time to arrange. GET RID OF THE TABS ON THE LEFT - AND DON'T DO SOMETHING STUPID LIKE THIS AGAIN. I would rather have NO tabs than ones I can't control.

I like the tabs on the side personally, But that's just me, I'd be happier if we had some sort of option. My older google page that i use for main things has them on the top, and the newer one i use for blogging and such *separate email accounts to cut down on spam* has them on the side.

as an option thats fine, but as a mandate ???? Well then let microsoft buy you, google, your attitude will fit right in considering how well (sarcastic if you dont guess)they did with their 2007 office interface.

dawins evolution of companies - the bigger they getthe smaller their ears become, to make room in cranial cavity for big egos.Thus the giants tend to fall all be it slowlysame goes for their eyes :-)the mouth however........ thats another story :-)

for those needing more details when in iGoogle1 select my account link in upper right portion of page2 on resulting page under my products ...select settings for Igoogle3 on resulting screen change language to uk english (on general tab)

I have switched my home page to Yahoo but have found that if you use the Gateway Google homepage it doesn't have the left tab - draw back seems to be that I can't seem to set the font big enough to really read comfortably, I have tried making it bigger in FireFox but it's temporary. Sadly I really can't find another home page I like as well as the old igoogle one. Changing your home page to another like Netvibes still uses Google for search etc so really why would Google care unless all they really wanted was to weed out people from using iGoogle.

Do you want to get rid of the side tabs on iGoogle and go back to the way it use to be?Copy and paste this link - http://www.google.com/ig?gl=allYou will see your old iGoogle is back. Now go to your internet options and save this as your current home page. You may want to save this link because you will find from time to time it goes back to the new way again but not very often.

The iGoogle weather column is the stupidest thing Google has ever done. It's been months and, no, they don't listen to their users, at all. However, there is a way around it. Just type in igoogle.ca instead of igoogle.com. The Canada version still doesn't use the weather column. The only time it matters is when you're buying something locally and you get Canadian adds.

Yup, the absolutely useless, space-wasting home tab is back again! What is wrong with the knuckleheads at Google that they think this is good idea. Taking away 20% of the screen real estate with no option to disable it. The reason I started using Google as my home page in the first place was because it was so customizable.

The timing is kind of ironic considering Microsoft just came out with Bing. It was great while it lasted Google, but I guess it's time to find a new home page.

The left tabs are back and the "ig?gl=all" workaround no longer is (a workaround).

Why is Google so insistent on forcing this change on users??? I'm using the "iGoogle Tab Remover" add-on for Firefox to get rid of them for now, but there should be a preferences setting for iGoogle that lets me TURN OFF TABS COMPLETELY.

I don't want that space-wasting, annoying, irritating left column! I do want the option to be able to search pages from the UK, which means I need google.co.uk. Sadly the above workaround doesn't seem to work with google.co.uk. Are they trying to alienate ALL the people who up to now thought google was wonderful?

I have decided today that I hate you. And I do not use the word 'hate' lightly. For the third time now I have come home from work, only to find that you have decided in your wisdom to fuck me over yet again. What did I ever do to you? Why are you doing this to me? I guess it's my own fault really, I was stupid enough to stay after the second time you forced your 'Home' tab down the side of my screen. Well, today I take a stand. Today I say NO MORE SIDE TABS! I am over Google, I am over the randomness of your actions. Today, I find a new browser to call home and I am never coming back.

The Home Tab is bloody awful. I presume Google will fix this asap otherwise I'm gone... There's no point using igoogle at work anyway if all I can see is a stupid Home Tab covering half my minimal screen...

Remember back in the 80’s when Coke changed to New Coke? Remember the outrage? And how Coke had to bring back Classic Coke and dump that new piss water they tried to foist upon us?

Imagine if they’d said, “No, this is it. Drink up. You’ll like it.” Imagine if they made you go to another store to get your old Coke. And then Coke found out about it and took that away from you. And you had to go search and find another store, way over in the UK, and again go out of your way to get it, and guess what? They closed down that route, too, and filled the racks with New Coke.

What would you do? Would you really say, Oh, thanks, Coke, for waking me up to your bountiful wisdom? Thanks for showing me the better way?

No. You’d say, “Screw you. If this is the way you treat us, totally ignoring all the outcries and frustration, SCREW YOU. I’m going to Pepsi, ‘cause at least they don’t go purposely pissing everyone off every six months.”

There. They won't listen to that, either, but truly, I was about to quit them altogether when I found this page, where someone mentioned this Firefox add-on, which just made my Google page even better in that it allows me to choose the size of the header.

Hear that, Google? They made it BETTER. That's why I sent them a donation instead of ranting about them all over the web you think you have a monopoly on.

Seriously, why not give us an option to either use the new or the old layout instead of forcing the change upon us all.

Have a poll on iGoogle where we users may say what we think of the new layout. But clearly reading through many of the comments said here, many of us are unhappy with the change!

Are you being such fucking hypocrites that you can't live up to your own sayings? You say you made these changes to benefit us all?Well, clearly you were mistaken. It takes up space, it looks hideous! Every time I open up my firefox and it takes me to my homepage, my eyes drift to the left looking at that stupid ass tab bar!

As "Maine Character" said in his/her rant. The mozilla addon makes it better than it is now! (If an addon can do it, why can't you?)

So as a long-term user of iGoogle I'm saying this;If the new tabs don't go, I will do as most have already done.That's change their homepage, and stopped using iGoogle.Even Bing is looking tempting at the moment!

I have also been using the "http://www.google.com/ig?gl=all" workaround for viewing my igoogle page. After many years of using / mastering the google search engine I'm throwing in the towel. Google is the winner. I cannot tolerate the side tabs PERIOD. I am going off in search of a new search (engine). Yahoo is OK but I'm thinking about giving bing a try even though I have steered clear of bing until now because Microsfot already controls almost everything in my life. SCREW igoogle & SCREW the google search engine. I will keep my gmail acount so try not to mess that up too!

Google is enforcing a very specific mode of operation on their user base 'us' and we don't have control over that. That's the problem! That's what i have! There's a business reason and $ associated with side tabs.

There is a firefox addon to hide the "home" tab. There is an AdBlock Plus script to hide the "home" tab. There is also an addon in Chrome to hide it. So many people hate the home tab, but have we ever gotten a response from igoogle about this insane waste of space?